Re: New work on fonts at W3C

Hi Vladimir,

Thanks for clarifying this and making the nature of Monotype's  
commitment more explict; I think that's very helpful.

> I have the management approval to offer a GPL-compatible license,  
> it's a
> promise that is contingent on the adoption of the technology in
> question. I am not sure I can offer you a draft text of the license -
> this would require engaging our legal counsel which I am reluctant  
> do at
> this point - we do not even have the Fonts WG setup yet. I am sure  
> we'll
> have time to iron this out while we are in the process of creating the
> recommendation.

That's perfectly reasonable, IMO.


In regard to your last comment:

> I am afraid to do what John proposed would be absolutely impractical  
> and
> prohibitively expensive from the production process point of view. I
> cannot see how we can put this burden on our customers, and I don't
> think that modifying every single copy of a font licensed for web  
> use by
> changing its name will work, especially because I'd imagine that most
> font EULAs would also allow non-web use where normal, full-featured  
> font
> versions with proper names and styles have to be supported.

I'm not sure this is as impractical as you suggest. Vendors such as  
Monotype would continue to deliver "normal" fonts, but customers  
wishing to use those fonts on a web server would be required (by the  
EULA) to use a tool that replaces the names with "No Trespassing"  
signs -- how is this more burdensome than having to use a tool that  
converts the OTF font to EOT? Either way, the customer has to use a  
tool that readies the font for web-server deployment. Such a font- 
renaming tool would be easy to create, using any of several existing  
(free) font-processing toolkits -- allowing this technique to be  
widely deployed in a fraction of the time it will take to implement  
any other option that involves significant modifications to browser  
code.

Regards,

Jonathan

Received on Monday, 22 June 2009 21:50:00 UTC